Day 62 St Thomas, ON-Pt Ryerse, ON

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Jo Day 62 (Oct 1): No rain, just wind this morning at the Comfort Inn in St. Thomas, Ontario. After Kevin, Alan and John took off for their 64 mile ride, we drove off and did some grocery shopping at Walmart...again...yep, more ice! Then we took off down the country roads (lots of corn & squash farms with deluxe farm houses). We saw some kids in a field, we stopped and I asked what they were growing...tobacco! We saw quite a few tobacco farms and a couple wineries. We drove to Port Burwell, and for a few minutes on the beach of Lake Erie we felt like we were in the movie "The Birds" with Tippi Hedren! A gazillion sea gulls on the beach flew up like a tornado as we walked towards them...we looked up over our heads and said, "Oh shit!" and ran back to the van. We escaped without any bird poop on us. LOL! We looked at the Port Burwell lighthouse that was constructed in 1840 and closed in 1962. We parked across the street in the Marine Museum parking lot and Janut put together her crockpot ingredients for dinner (it was yummy good...Italian sausage with white beans and kale raggu over gnocchi). After plugging in the crockpot, we drove by a lot of giant wind turbines sitting on farms. The Lake Erie Wind Farm consists of 66 1.5 MW GE wind turbines that generate enough electricity for 24,000 homes. Each blade is 37 meters (about the length of a Boeing 737) and the turbine tower is 80 meters high. The swept area of the turbine blades is the size of 3 NHL rinks combined. They say wind power has positive environmental and economic benefits, but it sure does interfere with beautiful pictures of Mother Nature. Oh, we drove into the Long Point Causeway Improvement Project area and saw an American mink run across the road. How cool! But we did not get out to walk around because we saw a sign that said something about ticks and Lyme Disease! Yikes! We met the guys at the campground in the Norfolk Conservation Area, Point Ryerse, Ontario. We have a nice spot overlooking Lake Erie (we all looked, but we cannot say "I can see the US from our camp site!"). Alan put a new chain on his bike while Janut and Kevin put the finishing touches on our yummy dinner. It's appropriate that we drove on Spooky Hollow Road today because it's a party here...they are celebrating Halloween tonight, and the kids and adults are dressed in costumes roaming through the campsites trick'o treating...they did not venture into our area (big scary Sprinter van I guess), even though Alan was happily waiting with dried fruit treats and Cliff bars to give away. Kevin took Bob out to "practice" and they fit right in with the Halloween party...he looked like Charlie Brown in his orange and black bike jersey and Bob was Snoopy, of course! LOL! It's 10:10pm and the music is still playing at the pavilion (the campers are having a fun time). Usually "quiet time" is at 10pm, we're pass that. I hope the music stops soon, because we all need our beautyrest.
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Kevin Day 62 St. Thomas to Port Ryerse, Ontario. 64 miles. After breakfast in the Sprinter, we began our ride in the rain and headed back to the shoreline of Lake Erie to get back on the ACA route. It wasn't raining too heavily, so the 10 miles or so back to the route weren't too bad. At about 25 miles in we stopped in Port Burwell for our second breakfast. Port Burwell is primarily a tourist town in summer, so most places were closed for the season. There's a maritime museum in town where's there's a retired Canadian submarine on display. We heard from a local that the submarine didn't become the attraction it was to be. At our breakfast stop, "The Lunchbox", they had a collection of metal lunch boxes. Most seemed to be modern; none from back in the day. My favorite was the soft kitty lunchbox. After breakfast the rain had pretty much stopped so riding conditions were fine for the afternoon-gray skies and temps in the mid to upper 50's. Along the way we passed fields of tobacco, a few potato and tomato farms, and a couple wineries. (No stops). Lunch in Port Rowan, where we chatted with a family that was very interested in cyclotouring. In someone's yard we saw the tree with a bike wheel grown into place. That must have taken some training! Tonight's campsite is at the Norfolk Conservation Area-our campsite is on a bluff above Lake Erie with a view of the water. Tonight's dinner is gnocchi with a ragout with kale and Italian sausage. The cooking of the gnocchi is very exciting! Tomorrow we ride to Fort Erie, our last night in Ontario and the we will cross back into the United States at Niagara Falls.